Introduction

Welcome to my blog. The title originates when my primary athletic activity was competitive walking, but now that I am back to running it also includes that.

Not all content is accessible from the main page: for example, the rogaines, racewalking, and ultramarathon pages all include content that is only accessible from those pages.

Ultramarathons

Ultramarathons are any event longer than the standard marathon distance of 26.2 miles / 42.195km. Standard distances for ultras are 50km, 50 miles, 100km, and 100 miles. There are also 12 hour and 24 hour track runs, and multi-day "stage races".

I have currently (September 2012) completed 30 ultramarathons, plus 1 DNF at about 66km at the Molesworth Run. Reports for most events are provided below.

See also

Rogaines

Rogaining is the sport of long distance cross-country navigation. Events can be as short as 2-3 hours or the standard 24 hours. Teamwork, endurance, competition and an appreciation for the natural environment are features of the sport. Rogaining involves both route planning and navigation between checkpoints using a variety of map types.

GN Phillips and RJ Phillips, Rogaining, 3rd ed, 2000



The two main umbrella organisations for rogaining in New Zealand are: My reports for selected events are provided below.


Hiking and Mountains

The Hiking, Trail Running, and Mountains pages are all inter-related, but with some subtle differences:
  • Hiking is not an organised race, and may include Coastal Adventures, activities in the Mountains, and hiking in other locations;
  • Trail Running covers organised events, some in the mountains, but others on local hills and trails; and
  • The Mountains category covers both events and hiking in various places that can be classed as mountains.


  • Racewalking

    Racewalking only has to meet two technical requirements:
    • no loss of contact, as judged by the human eye; and
    • the leg has to be straight from the moment of first contact until it is upright.
    More detailed rules are here.

    I'm not particularly good at racewalking, often falling foul of the straight leg rule. But I still give it a go and here are the results of my endeavours.


    Running

    This blog is primarily about my walking activities, but sometimes I do run. Here are reports for events where I have run.

    Shorter Races

    I classify events as ultramarathons, marathons, rogaines, and "shorter events". So a "shorter event" is just something that is shorter than a marathon and is not a rogaine. Consequently there's a mixed bag in here: running, racewalking, half marathons, 10k and 5k races, , etc.


    Sunday, December 3, 2000

    Korokoro Stream Half Marathon

    This is, without a doubt, the hardest half marathon I have ever run. The course descends to sea level, and then proceeds to climb all the way to Belmont Trig at 456m asl. On top of that, this was the longest run that I had done since before my hernia operation.

    The day was overcast, 10-14°C with intermittent drizzle. However, there was almost no wind, so the conditions were great for running. I wasn’t sure whether I would be able to run the whole thing, or whether I might have to walk a significant amount of the higher part of the course. Given the weather, I packed enough gear into my pack to allow for a walk in potentially quite heavy rain and wind.

    Despite these handicaps, I was in the first ten for about the first kilometer. I found myself running with the lead woman runner, although she was a little faster than me on the downhills, and I would catch her up again on the uphills. This lasted until the long descent to State Highway 2 (about 2-3m asl), where she comfortably pulled away from me. For the last week I had been having problems with the posterior tibialis muscle in each leg, and I found that I just couldn’t stretch my legs out sufficiently on the downhills. Nevertheless, I went through the first 5km in 25:01 – a bit slow, but good enough given the recent lack of training.

    The short section along SH2 was uneventful, and soon we were heading up the Korokoro Stream track. I was still in the top third of the field until I had to stop to repair a blister. In the course of about 60s, almost all of the rest of the field passed me by, and there was only about 5 people left behind me.

    The route up Korokoro Stream was very pleasant – even the upper sections where we had to cross through the stream. After leaving the stream at Baked Beans Bend, we started the relentless upwards climb. I soon relented, and started walking rather than running. It was then a long walk all the way to the top. I made it to the top in 1:37:31 – longer than the slowest half marathon that I had run earlier in the year!

    From the top there was nowhere to go but down, and I found that my posterior tibialis muscles had stretched sufficiently to enable me to make a reasonable go of the downhill (apart from exercising extra caution not to aggravate the hernia site). It wasn’t long until Stratton Street was reached, and from there to the finish it was a combination of run and walk on the undulating roads and footpaths. I eventually made it to the finish in 2:20:56, having passed quite a few people since the trig.

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